Zoology of Borneo. 5113 



Observations on the Zoology of Borneo. 

 By A. R. Wallace, Esq. 



A residence of fifteen months in Sarawak and its neighbourhood 

 having given me a very good idea of the Natural History of N.W. 

 Borneo, I will briefly note the results, for the information of my friends 

 and the readers of the ' Zoologist.' 



With a very few exceptions, the Mammalia and birds are not very 

 interesting or numerous. Of the former I obtained about thirty -five 

 species, among which are two species of orang-utan, five other Quadru- 

 mana, the rare and curiout otter, Potamophilus barbatus, the no less 

 interesting Gymnurus Rafflesii, and several curious Rodentia and 

 Insectivora. To the great orang-utans I devoted particular attention, 

 and have probably seen more of these animals in a state of Nature 

 than any other European: I resided for eight months in the district 

 Ihey frequent, and in that time succeeded in shooting fifteen speci- 

 mens, male and female, old and young, and among them two 

 males of the smaller species, hitherto only known by the female 

 skeleton. As an account of my observations on the orangs has been 

 sent to the ' Annals of Natural History,' I shall say no more about 

 them here. 



The birds I found remarkably scarce and uninteresting, almost all 

 being common Malacca species. Out of about a hundred I do not 

 think more than ten are peculiar to Borneo, and probably not more 

 than one or two are new. In the northern and eastern parts of the 

 island there are probably many novelties to be found, but the districts 

 nearest to Sumatra and to the peninsula of Malacca possess an or- 

 nithological fauna so little peculiar as to furnish strong presumptive 

 evidence of a closer connexion between these countries having existed 

 at no very distant geological epoch. What is known of the whole 

 island, indeed, favours the same view, for out of 107 species of Bornean 

 birds in the Leyden Museum only twenty-five are peculiar to it, the 

 rest being also found in Java, Sumatra or Malacca, and the greater 

 portion common to all those countries. Birds of brilliant plumage are 

 remarkably rare, and the Psittacidae, so beautiful and numerous further 

 eastward, are here represented only by the four common Malacca 

 species. It is clear, therefore, that, from what is known of it, Borneo 

 does not offer a very tempting field for the researches of the ornitho- 

 logist. 



XIV. 2 B 



